Georg Bartisch

Georg Bartisch was a German physician and eye surgeon who lived from 1535 to 1607 and was born in Königsbrück in Saxony. He began his medical career at the age of thirteen as an apprentice to a barber surgeon and, without any university training, spent much of his life as an itinerant surgeon working across Saxony, Silesia and Bohemia. He later settled in Dresden, and in 1588 he became court oculist to Duke Augustus I of Saxony. He is remembered for Ophthalmodouleia Das ist Augendienst, published in 1583, which is regarded as the first Renaissance work on eye diseases and eye surgery. It discussed ocular disorders, operations and instruments, and carried an ophthalmic atlas of 92 woodcuts. He also worked on lithotomy for removing urinary stones, although he held that magic, astrology and witchcraft had a real place in medicine.